Decision details

Following the Full Council approval of the HRA capital budget for 2024/25 – 2027/28 on 23 February 2024, to appoint Buckingham Interiors who are part of the Furniture Resource Centre (FRC) Group to carry out interior design and provision of furniture and flooring at Goldfoot House Sheltered Scheme owned by CBC through the PFH (Procurement for Housing) Framework.

To re-furbish the communal interior areas of Goldfoot House Sheltered Scheme owned by CBC to provide a modern and welcoming environment for the use of tenants, to ensure the scheme continues to meet residents’ expectations and presents a desirable place to live.

Buckingham Interiors specialise in creating functional, homely, interior design led spaces within older people’s accommodation – independent living, sheltered housing, extra care etc. They work on refurbishments and new build projects and help clients with interiors including furniture, window coverings, floorings, choosing paint and wallpapers, artwork, accessories, planting. They can be flexible around the requirements for each project and use a standard pricing model. CBH have access to their in-house interior design concepts, decorating specifications etc free of charge. There would be an additional charge for interior design if we wanted a bespoke design concept to be created solely for the use of CBH. Officers from CBH have looked at Buckingham Interior’s design at other Landlord’s schemes and are happy to go with their standard designs which provide a good choice while keeping costs as low as possible. Buckingham Interiors also carried out a successful project at Robert Harvey house in 2019 and Popes Close and Coopers Court in 2022.

The first refurbishment exercise of this nature was undertaken at Robert Harvey House in 2019. At the time we considered traditional procurement and obtained quotes from 3 interior design companies. This is a specialised area, and it became apparent that it was very difficult to compare the quotes.
The quote from Buckingham Interiors included a design element within the price for supply of furniture etc, negating the requirement to procure separate consultancy services for interior design and furniture specification. On this basis it was considered that using Buckingham Interiors would be the most economically beneficial.
Buckingham Interiors were successful on the Procurement for Housing (PfH) framework agreement and it was subsequently agreed that they should be appointed under this framework.
Using the Framework ensures we have the best rates as there has been a rigorous procurement exercise undertaken by PfH and enables quick and efficient mobilisation as a further procurement exercise is not required.
Robert Harvey House was undertaken as a pilot project and was successful; we therefore rolled the project out to Coopers Court and Popes Close on the same basis and again these have been successful projects, it is now proposed to use the same format for the works at Goldfoot House.